Underwater(42)

“How do you know?”

“Because when someone like Aaron is set on doing something, he’s going to find a way no matter what.”

There’s a bus stop bench nearby, and I motion to it. I want to stay there and just breathe. Brenda sits next to me. We look out at the street. We watch the traffic.

Brenda says, “It’s a lot to take in, I know.”

I nod. The wind is there. And the street. And the people. And the cars. I listen. I breathe. I think. I process. I’ve spent minutes, hours, weeks, and months thinking I could’ve made a difference if I hadn’t stopped to give him a ride. Or if I’d picked up on the clues that are so clear to me now. His backpack. His warning to skip first period. Everything he said. But if I believe what Brenda is telling me, I couldn’t have changed the outcome. Not at all.

“Don’t punish yourself for being kind,” Brenda says. “Perhaps more people should’ve been kind to Aaron.”

When I’m ready, we head inside the corner store. The smell of deli sandwiches crawls up my nostrils, making my mouth water. I remember roast beef on sourdough bread and sour cream and onion potato chips. I remember getting food to go on Saturdays in the summer and eating it on the beach with Sage while we watched the waves roll in. I suddenly want a roast beef sandwich because I can have a roast beef sandwich. I’m sick of grilled cheese.

I cross over to the deli counter. Brenda follows me. She’s observing, not talking. I place my order, and the girl behind the counter rips off the bottom portion of the order ticket, writes the price on it, and hands it to me. I grip it between my fingertips as I cruise the aisles looking for baking supplies. Brenda is still there. She’s with me, but quiet. There are a few dusty boxes of cake mix on a shelf near the back freezer.

“I don’t think people come here very often for birthday cake,” I say. I check the expiration dates on the frosting and the cake mix, settling on the one that expires in three months instead of three weeks.

I tap out all my funds paying for my sandwich and cake supplies. We leave, making our way back out to the pockmarked sidewalks of my town. I glance at the mailbox in front of me. I think of my letter and wonder if it has made its way across town yet. Brenda and I traipse past it, dodging a guy on a bike. The sudden swoosh of him makes me jump, and my heart speeds up.

When we get back to my house, Brenda comes inside and I put my sandwich in the refrigerator for later. Brenda settles on a stool at the counter to watch me stir chocolate cake mix, eggs, and vegetable oil with a big wooden spoon. She asks me some questions, simple stuff about how I plan to decorate the cake and what sort of celebration we’re planning. I answer her while dumping the mix into a baking dish coated with cooking spray. When it’s time to go, she gives me a hug. She’s never done that before. It’s not creepy or anything. It’s just different. But it’s meaningful, too. It’s like her way of saying she’s happy with what I’m becoming.

“Thank you for everything you do,” I tell her.

“I’m happy to do it. You’ve helped me, too.”

“I have? How?”

She takes in a deep breath, closing her eyes. “We have more in common than you know. I’m just glad I can be here for you.”

I hug her because that’s all I want to do. It’s the only response I have.

“Ben’s going to love the cake,” she says as we pull away from each other.

She smiles at me, and I think it’s weird how I might be helping her, too.





chapter thirty-one

My mom is relieved I baked a cake, because we’d be up hours past Ben’s bedtime if she had to bake one herself. Still, she wants to know how I got the ingredients.

“Brenda and I took a field trip,” I explain. “We walked to the market on the corner.”

“Morgan, that’s huge.” She holds my face in her hands. She kisses my forehead. “I’m so proud of you. I knew you could do it.”

I nod. I’m glad she’s proud, but I don’t want to keep talking about it.

Ben loves my cake. I used chocolate frosting and sprinkled brown sugar on top to look like dirt. Then I took some of Ben’s plastic dinosaurs and plunked them down on top of the brown sugar. My brother blows out the candles, then picks up each of the dinosaurs to lick the frosting from their feet. I reassure my mom that I washed all of them when she cringes in disgust.

I cut slices of cake and slide them over to my mom and Ben at the counter. I stand in the kitchen to eat mine.

Through a forkful of cake, Ben asks if we can play Go Fish after he takes his bath.

“Dude, it’s your birthday. We can pretty much do whatever you want,” I say.

“Really?”

He gets this look on his face like he’s thinking really hard about what he wants to do. I wait for him to ask for something over-the-top, like going for a ride on the old wooden roller coaster by the beach, but he doesn’t say it.

“I wanna give Evan some cake,” he says. “Can he come over?”

My mom looks at me over her plate, with her eyebrows raised like, Well, can he?

“No way,” I say. “That’s not a good idea.”

Ben slumps down on his stool, resting his chin on the counter. I’m a horrible sister to project my issues onto my little brother’s birthday celebration. But how can I sit here eating cake with Evan when he doesn’t even want to talk to me?